Al Nakbah - The Great Catastrophe

On this day, May 15th, in 1948, a great catastrophe fell upon the people of ancient Palestine. On this day 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and forced into exile by jewish settlers who came to claim the Palestinian lands. Many were given 20 minutes to vacate their houses or suffer death. The newly arrived and often quite brutal settlers were heavily armed and funded by the west and left the Palestinians no other choice but to leave. Support for the jews fleeing the hardships of war torn Europe and migrating to Palestine at the time was unanimous due to the rumours of horror they had allegedly suffered during world war 2. This support for the influx of European jews into Palestine and squashing of any resistance was further spurred on by false flag attacks that were staged by Britain during the jewish migration from Europe. This operation carried out in 1948 was called "Operation Embarrass" in which Britain attacked and bombed five ships carrying jewish refugees, blaming the attacks on a completely fictitious group they named as "The Defenders of Arab Palestine".

Operation Embarrass served to lay one of the foundation stones for the later vilification of Islam and also to label all Palestinians as terrorists, an unwarranted, and undeserved tag they have never been able to shake, to this day. It also provided the psychological framework for israel to later refer to any remaining inhabitants as "Arabs in Gaza and West Bank" and to openly deny the existence of any "real" Palestinians.

This view of all Palestinians being terrorists is a mental program that is still maintained, promoted and periodically fanned by the unconscionable main stream media and it is this social programming that has been largely responsible for the world turning a blind eye to Palestine and has thus allowed the occupying israeli forces to carry out their continued atrocities against those people who still remain there. These atrocities include the arrest and imprisonment of children, indiscriminate shooting of Palestinians without provocation or cause, theft of Palestinian water by tapping into underground aquifers, constant illegal theft of Palestinian lands, the demolition of Palestinian homes and the illegal construction of entire israeli suburbs on stolen land. These constant evictions are often carried out at night and are accompanied by brutal acts of terrorism against the inhabitants of the West Bank, even against school children, many of whom are routinely kidnapped and terrorized in military prisons, or forced to work as slave labour on israeli 'agricultural settlements". This media programmed mindset has caused the world to turn a blind eye to the 1.8 million Palestinians israel keeps illegally imprisoned in the world's largest open air concentration camp in the Gaza Strip, over half of whom are children (the average age in Gaza is just 17).

Gaza stands alone and locked down from the outside world, its entire population decreed, by israel and its supporters to live under a state of collective punishment; its very existence a stark breach of the 4th Geneva Convention and thus an open war crime; its 1.8 million inhabitants, now held under an illegal siege; subject to constant harassment and bombardment from israel; its crops routinely destroyed; less than 1% drinkable water, deprived of the most basic needs of human life - for a period of ten years now. And all due to less than 25% of the population voting for HAMAS, - a political party created by israel, as opposition to Yasser Arafat's Fatah and placed there for the Palestinians to vote for, and whom once elected, were named as a terrorist group by israel to provide them with the excuse they needed to place Gaza under an illegal siege that still remains in place today.

Palestine is the greatest moral dilemma in the world today and when looked at from a human perspective, holds the key healing the world of many of its woes. Yet to this day, in utter defiance of all that it means to be human, it stands alone and neglected. Any act of self defence or indeed any show of dignity at all that a Palestinian attempts in response to the continuous and unrelenting aggression, and pure terrorism, they suffer daily at the hands of their brutal israeli oppressors, is labelled by western media as 'provocation', or worse itself as 'terrorism.'

The number of Palestinian refugees has now grown to over 7million. A scattered, lost and mostly forgotten people in the eyes of the main stream. Yet they are a proud people, a tenacious people and they will never stop fighting for the truth. They will never back down, they will never give up. They once said Palestinians are like hero's, now they say that real hero's are like Palestinians.

You see the real truth is that everything you have been told about Palestine and it's people by mainstream media sources is a lie. The people of Palestine are a warm, kind and loving people. They are a brave people and they are a respective people. I know they are, because I went there, and I met them. Though I don't contact them as much as I should, simply because the pain I feel at their suffering sometimes becomes too great for me to bear, I still count some of my dearest friends to be those friends I have in Gaza. And if Gaza were ever to become free, I would move there to live with the Palestinian people in a second.

So let me reiterate. Palestine is the greatest moral dilemma in the world today. And it is important that people open their hearts to their brothers and sisters, and to the tens of thousands of children who are trapped there. Children who have never known a life without walls; a life without bombs; a life without war and foreign soldiers tormenting them. It's important that the people of Earth see those trapped in the horror that is today's Palestine for what they are. They are people like you. It's important people do this, and that people pay attention not just for the people of Palestine but also for their own sake. Because a beast is approaching. We have always known it was coming, but the stark reality is that it is here. And it is now consolidating its power over the entire earth. And if people do not soon open their hearts to heal the suffering in Palestine, then the way of Palestine will be the way of the world.

In Lak'ech

Max Igan

http://thecrowhouse.com